Time to finally see an impressive short film I've been waiting years to feature here on FS. This short is called EVE and is made by a French concept artist turned filmmaker named Eric Gandois, making a strong first impression with this work. I originally got see the short in full two years ago, but it has been kept off the internet until now. The film stars Delphine Chaneac, seen in Vincenzo Natali's Splice, as a woman living in a future where there's barely any oxygen left and most of life on our planet has died off. It's entirely dialogue free and uses visuals and her performance to tell the story. I love discovering great work like this and featuring it, as this could be the beginning of an exciting filmmaking career for Gandois.

The post-Enlightenment scientific world has a closed model of perception: the subject’s sense organs receive information, which is passed to the brain where it is interpreted. In the medieval world, perception was a more open process, where much might pass not only between perceived and perceiver, but also the other way round, from the perceiver to the object or individual who was the focus of perception. This was a two-way process, at the very least. Sitting at my desk today, I can feel that it is hard and smooth; it might also be warm or cold to my touch. If I had sat here 600 years ago, my senses might have transmitted to the desk physical, moral and spiritual qualities, and it might have passed others to me: if this was a place that had been used by a holy or evil person, those qualities might reside in the desk. This was not the one-way transmission of ‘information’ that one anticipates today, but something much broader, and, in the highly moral world of the Middle Ages, the transfer of these broader qualities was of immense significance

"There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds."
-Lord Tennyson

“We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools; yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.”
― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

“In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.”
― René Descartes

“I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.

I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room -- room for the human mind.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Ghosts and Other Lectures

“I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley

One of the things a study of otherworld journeys teaches us is that we cannot imagine life without a body. We cannot exist as bare discarnate egos, even in the "life to come." "It is sown a natural body;" wrote St. Paul, "it is raised a spiritual body." And we cannot help but envisage this spiritual body as something like the "subtle" - the daimonic - body which can separate from, and survive the physical.
-Patrick Harpur

The Otherworld is always imagined as beginning at the edge of our known world. It can be the wilderness outside the city walls or the unexplored regions at the edge of maps labelled 'Here be dragons'. It can begin at the brink of the ocean or at the garden gate. As the boundaries of the Unknown are pushed back, the world largely mapped, the Otherworld is located in outer space. Early aliens claimed to come from Venus, Mars or the Moon; later, when these planets seemed more local, less remote, they claimed to come from distant star systems such as Zeta Reticuli or the Pleiades.

Religion sets the boundary of the Unknown at the limits of human life. In traditional cultures, the other world beyond life, after death, is immanent another reality contained within this one...

-Patrick Harpur

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Song for Gabriel

My heart is a song that rises
It is a rainbow bridge
spanning abysses
of place and time

My heart is a song that rises
to walk in the One Light
to heal the wound
between earth and sky

My heart is a song that rises
It is the crystal fire
that wakens the sleeper
into the dream

My heart is a song that rises
It is the pure waterfall
that cleanses my path
with tears of joy
-Robert Moss

"Our biologically engineered hosts are created from the ground up…" If you're looking for something to make you think, stop and watch this. There's an impressive new sci-fi short film out called Trial made by The Brothers Lynch, the same guys behind Dual and Old Habits. Starring Tom Cullen, Ana Ularu and Joseph Mawle, the short takes place from the perspective of a quadriplegic soldier who gets a nifty new mind transfer procedure that helps him rehabilitate. The short is a teaser for a full feature called Residual that will be the Brothers Lynchs' directorial debut, and it's currently securing financing. Take a look below.

The World is Tiamat, carved into shape and form by Marduk. It is Rangi and Papi, locked in their embrace while their children war within them. It was created by a wagtail swimming upon an infinite ocean, and by Q’uq’umatz and Tepeu speaking the word “Earth” when floating upon a similar infinite ocean. Atum existed within a very similar ocean, containing all the World within himself, taking the definitions and limits of existence from the Primordial Deities and granting stewardship to the Ennead until he was named. The sons of Burr lifted the earth out of another infinite sea, fashioned from the bones and flesh and maggots of long-dead Ymir.

It is all of these things, even in contradiction to one another, and they are all true. To understand the paradox, to understand the World, you must see it as the Gods do.

Quote:

Off the coast of Ireland are four city-islands: Murias, Falias, Gorias and Findias. You won’t find them on any map, but the same waters that lap against the Emerald Isle’s shore lap against theirs. If you go to these places, you’ll find shattered ruins and high magic, wild and unfettered from a time when the Tuatha were young. Search further, and you’ll find both fae and mortal, their eyes unseeing but souls weighted with knowledge, sequestered there by Gods who want to keep them from the prying eyes of the World. Not too far geographically, but infinitely far if you don’t know the way, lies the Isle of Avalon, where Arthur ap Uther rests until the hour of Britain’s greatest need. There’s people on that isle, ruled by a nonet in the slumbering king’s stead. Across the World, if you’ve the right heritage and aptitude, you can climb a side of Mount Fuji and find yourself on another mountain entirely – Horai, where the air itself grants you knowledge and lightens your heart so you never grow old.

These are Terra Incognita, and they encompass civilizations and worlds in and of themselves. They are inextricably linked to the World, connected via a specific site called an axis mundi. Cities like Shangri-La? Continent-sized islands like Hy-Brasil? Planets like Nibiru or Muspelheim or Vanaheimr or (maybe) Brahmapura, orbiting a strange and foreign sky? They’re there. Humans and other creatures live in them. They cross over, sometimes, into the World, visitors and travelers and emigres and exiles. Sometimes even emissaries.

“The Odyssey, like the epic poem by Homer, is a journey. It’s Florence’s personal journey to find herself again after the emotional storm of a heartbreak. Like the layers of Dante’s purgatory, each song or chapter represents a battle that Florence traversed and physical landscape that embodied each song or story. Its a metaphorical journey about escaping your demons, confronting yourself and returning to the original Florence, the dancer, the performer, the lover.”

=-=-=
“We are pluriforms of God voluntarily descended to this prison world, voluntarily losing our memory, identity, and supernatural powers (faculties), all of which can be regained through anamnesis.”
-P.K.Dick

“From Ikhnaton [pharaoh who initiated monotheism] this knowledge passed to Moses, and from Moses to Elijah, the Immortal Man, who became Christ. But underneath all the names there is only one Immortal Man; and we are that man.”
-P.K.Dick

They are the scatterlings of Africa
Each uprooted one
They're on the road to Phelamanga
Where the world began
I love the scatterlings of Africa
Each and every one
In their hearts a burning hunger
Beneath the copper sun

African ideas
African ideas
Make the future clear
Make the future clear

They are the scatterlings of Africa
Each uprooted one
They're on the road to Phelamanga
Where the world began
And for the scatterlings of Africa
The journey has begun
You shall find their hungry eyes
Beneath the copper sun

Ancient bones from Olduvai
Echoes of the very first cry:
"Who made me here and why
Beneath the copper sun?"
My very first beginnings
Beneath the copper sky
Lie deeply buried
In the dust of Olduvai

And we are scatterlings of Africa
Both you and I
We're on the road to Phelamanga
Beneath this copper sky
And we are scatterlings of Africa
On a journey to the stars
Far below, we leave forever
Dreams of what we were

Hawu beke Mama-ye! Mama-ye!
In the beginning
Beneath the copper sky
Ancient bones
In the dust of Olduvai
Who made us here and why?
Remember!
Scatterlings of Africa (repeat and fade)"

=-=-=

Usual caveat about not endorsing/refuting real world beliefs:

Quote:

So what exactly is this subtle body? As I noted earlier, Abhinavagupta tells us that the subtle body “is like the physical body, but it does not have limitations in terms of its spatial dimensions” (ĪPVV 306). Nor is it bound by the divisions of time into past and present, though it is still connected to time as a category. That is, the notions of time past and present exist but are not binding for the subtle body. So it is not operating in a transcendent timeless space, yet still, it is not strictly bound to linear time. It operates within a framework of time dividing the capacity for awareness. This bears repeating: the subtle body is not a transcendent, time-free entity. This again entails a flexibility in terms of the capacity of the subtle body to access past and future, though in a limited way, since the notion of freedom, svātantrya, entails a fundamental openness and newness always available...

"For such a critical figure in early Egyptian cosmology, there are comparatively few temples to Nuit. One possible reason for this is she is ‘too far up’ the creation story and is thus more of a ‘universal force’ than a goddess. There is probably something to this analysis but it is an insufficient explanation on its own. Firstly, she is actively involved in the Pyramid Text formula and there are other divine forces, such as Maat, that had temples.
Further evidence of her antiquity comes from an examination of her role as one part of the ‘separation of earth and sky parents’ motif. At first glance, the gender reversal of the pairing – having a female sky and male earth – appears to be an outlier in the motif; ‘earth mothers’ and ‘sky fathers’ are seemingly more common. Dr Witzel accounts for the variation below:

The reversed position may be further elucidated by a comparison with Vedic myth. In daytime, the sky arches over the earth, like Father Heaven, stemmed up by Indra from the prostrate Mother Earth. But at night, the situation is reversed: Earth and the primordial hill or rock, on which she rests, have turned upside down and over-arch the now prostrate Heaven as the ‘stone sky’ of Iranian, Hawai’ian and Pueblo myth.

Such an interpretation would explain not only the extremely common depiction of Nuit inside coffins but also the numerous instances of Tefnut, a Mother Earth analogue, painted on the inside of sarcophagi. The deceased is in the Underworld/stars, thus the earth is now his or her sky. Tefnut, in addition to her consort, Shu, are the conjoined couple ‘the next level up’ from Geb and Nuit, suggesting a ‘passing back up through the worlds’ for the deceased. Recall also that the ritual timings of the Pyramid Texts and royal mummification rituals rely on asterisms such as Orion and Sirius to rise above the horizon, to ‘emerge’ from the Underworld/sky, from their Mother, Nuit. The Dead are under the earth and also in the stars."
-Gordon White, Star.Ships

"Conventional monism, or that all ‘things’ that seem to have identity of their own are only islands that are projections from something underlying, and have no real outlines of their own. But that all ‘things,’ though only projections, are projections that are striving to break away from the underlying that denies them identity of their own. I conceive of one inter-continuous nexus, in which and of which all seeming things are only different expressions, but in which all things are localizations of one attempt to break away and become real things, or to establish entity or positive difference or final demarcation or unmodified independence— or personality or soul, as it is called in human phenomena."
-Charles Fort

Covers beliefs of Hawaiian Huna tradition, Puységur’s Magnetic-sleep Model Of The Mind, Du Prel’s Transcendental-ego Model of the Mind, Janet’s Multiple-consciousness Model of the Mind, Myers’s Subliminal-self Model of the Mind, Freud’s Dynamic-unconscious Model of the Mind, Jung’s Collective-unconscious Model of the Mind, Erickson’s Hypnotic-trance Model of the Mind, and finally a proposed model by Crabtree (the author).

Woman
My love is never ending
Like a sea without a shore
Woman
I'm a fool guilty of old crimes
But you are the one I adore
Woman
When the world has emptied
and the planet is covered in dust
I will stand beneath the silver moon rising
Waiting to resurrect our love

=-=-=

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
― C.G. Jung

"I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face."
- David Cronenberg

=-=-=

"Prajapati was alone. He didn’t even know whether he existed or not. ‘So to speak’, iva. (As soon as one touches on something crucial, it’s as well to qualify what one has said with the particle iva, which doesn’t tie us down.) There was only the mind, manas. And what is peculiar about the mind is that it doesn’t know whether it exists or not. But it comes before everything else. ‘There is nothing before the mind.’

Then, even prior to establishing whether it existed or not, the mind desired. It was constant, diffuse, undefined. Yet, as though drawn to something exotic, something belonging to another species of life, it desired what was definite and separate, what had shape. A self, atman – that was the name it used. And the mind imagined that self as having consistency. Thinking, the mind grew red hot. It saw thirty-six thousand fires flare up, made of mind, made with mind. Suspended above the fires were thirty-six thousand cups, and these too were made of mind."

Like their South Asian counterparts, Platonic theurgists believed the soul mirrors a hierarchy of cosmic realities and that by nurturing these powers they could transform and perfect their lives. The sixth-century Platonist Hierocles explains that philosophy must include theurgic rites: “Philosophy is united with the art of sacred things since this art is concerned with the purification of the luminous body, but if you separate philosophical thinking from this art, you will find that it no longer has the same power” (Hadot, 2004, p. 48; modified, italics added). Philosophy in the West long ago became an entirely intellectual enterprise separated from the art of sacred things.

Philosophy no longer focuses on transforming the soul’s affective energies, aligning them to their correspondences in the cosmos or recovering the soul’s luminous body. This affective aspect of philosophy, communicated through the physical presence of sages, is no longer recognized today, which is why no one goes to contemporary philosophers for self-transformation. Yet the Platonists maintained— like yogis today— that each soul possesses a subtle body that can be transformed into an augoeides ochēma, a luminous vehicle with supernatural powers. Hierocles’ sacred art is theurgy, rituals that purify and strengthen the subtle body and allow the soul to share in the life of the gods and their creation— demiurgy. The disciplines of theurgy, like those of Yoga, include attention to diet, exercise, and the care of both physical and subtle bodies.

Continue on your journey
kindred spirit, as you must,
take the wandering scenic route,
take every curious side trip,
the longest, wondrous treks
over mountains and coombs,
parched desert and rainforest,
see the sunrise over the clouds,
follow the dark dreadful detours,
stray into the deepest mysteries,
waver at the chasm's edge,
hear the whispers in the wind,
the roar upon the seashore,
calling to the relenting heart,
for that is your own soul's path
to the answer that you seek.
-Dana Lomas

The technique is pretty simple but it takes constant practice to make it work. No breakthrough, just constant effort and the results form a kind of fog of happenings. You begin with a series of computations performed by the moon, which is doubly important both as a calculator and as a focus, because, when it is a bright moonlit night here, that moonlight is the light of the lunar day; day and night at once, exploit uncertainty of time categories is a permeable seam. So there are the lunar calculations, and then the dragon. Sometimes it’s a far eastern dragon, other times it’s western, and other times it’s a snake, or serpent rather, who once was an eel that sprouted legs and came out on land, then dove into the earth as if it were water and went back to not having legs again.

Far from Theros, on the plane of Fiora, the High City of Paliano is home to countless intrigues and plots. The high lords of the city vie for supremacy. Move is met with countermove, and trust with betrayal, all under the auspices of the immortal King Eternal. But the king was a living man, once, and a friend to the elf explorer Selvala...

Only rarely do we take possession of time, which possesses our very selves in a metaphysical sense; only rarely do we become master of this power which we ourselves are.

– Martin Heidegger, THE METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC

An individual is a piece of fate, from the front and from the back; an individual is one more law, one more necessity imposed on everything that is coming and going to be. To say to an individual: ‘change yourself’ means demanding that everything change, even retroactively.

This hotel is located in Huilo Huilo, a Natural Reserve in Chile. The rustic appearance ends with the exterior however, as the interiors are done up in luxury. There are only 9 rooms, named after bird species found in the area. Each of them overlooks the thick forest and wildlife outside. Guests even get a glimpse of a real-life volcano from the hotel. Hot tubs made out of huge tree trunks, overlooking the forest are a major tourist attraction at Magic Mountain, as is the world’s longest zip line running through the grounds.

Godbound is a game of divine heroes in a broken world, men and women who have seized the tools that have slipped from an absent God's hands. Bound by seeming chance to the Words of Creation, these new-forged titans face a world ravaged by the mad ambitions of men and the cruel legacy of human folly. Their foes are many: the jealous parasite gods that suck at the wounds of the world, the furious Angelic Host that once held Heaven against the armies of men, and the endless legions of sorcerers, god-monsters, mortal tyrants, and eldritch relicts that scourge the shattered realms. The Godbound stand against these horrors, determined to forge a better world from the fragments of the old. Still, not all these newborn divinities have a hero's soul, and some nurture red dreams of glory and unfettered rule. Will you be a merciful god to your people, or will you make them dread your holy name?

Godbound does more than simply give you the tools to create these wielders of the Words. Within these pages, a GM will find the guidelines they need to challenge the mightiest of heroes and mark tremendous deeds on the face of their world. Inside this book, you'll find…

Everything you need to take a Godbound hero from their first uncertain awakening to the pinnacle of divine supremacy, with mighty Words of Creation, divine gifts, and enormous works of celestial Dominion.

Fearsome god-monsters and terrifying foes to tax even a pantheon of Godbound. More than that, you'll find specific instructions and advice for matching martial challenges with situations and groups.

Sine Nomine-style system-neutral tools for building demigod-worthy adventures and Former Empire ruins. Create noble courts, lost shards of Heaven, hidden ruins, and dire perils for your heroes to overcome. Play a different game? Lift these tools out and use them with your system of choice!

A system-neutral Dominion and faction mechanic that lets heroic deeds have mechanically-supported effects on the campaign world. Your hero wants to build a fortress in her native village, or ward an allied nation from the scourge of a Host-spawned disease? These rules show you how to do so, and how to make it count in play. Need to find out what happens when the pantheon's holy nation declares war on an insidious empire of evil? The rules here will give you an answer you can use.

Old-school inspired play mechanics derived from the Scarlet Heroes game system that are easy to pick up and let you loot decades of material for foes and challenges for the players. Just grab a classic arch-enemy, run it through the conversion notes in the bestiary chapter, and you've got your next campaign nemesis.